


and who shall wear the starry crown

by theatrythms



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Family, Faye is bi, M/M, Minor Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Minor Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Dedue Molinaro, Minor Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth, Minor Ferdinand von Aegir/Dorothea Arnault, Murder siblings Dima and El, Political Alliances, Political Drama, Post-Canon Fix-It, Retainer and Liege, Romance, Secret Identity, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:46:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22868836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theatrythms/pseuds/theatrythms
Summary: “My sister, the Godkiller.” Edelgard’s laugh is very soft.“Well, it wasn’t just me. It was all of us.” Faye answers honestly, her hands fiddling with her skirt.  She doesn’t like thinking about Duma Temple, she doesn’t like remembering the way the loneliness settled in her bones when the Divine Dragon had been felled, but she knew Valentia was all the better for it.“Then tell me, dear sister,” Edelgard says, a dark gleam in her remaining eye. “What would require the need to kill a God?Sir Mycen didn’t just harbour Alm and Celica as secret royal children. Now Faye must be the Empire’s representative in the unification process of Fódlan as the last eligible von Hresvelg to abdicate to King Dimitri.
Relationships: Alm/Anthiese | Celica, Clea | Clair & Efi | Faye, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Edelgard von Hresvelg, Efi | Faye/Lukas, Gray/Robin | Tobin, Past Faye/Silque, Ram Village Kids
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	1. good lord, show me the way

**Author's Note:**

> LMAO this is the most indulgent thing ive ever written ! ever ! lmao ! anyway faye is a secret hresvelg child and has to negotiate on behalf of an entire country she has no idea shes tied to ! expect influences from irish political history bc its all i know really . ive put three years between faye and edelgard and that edelgard doesnt know she exists . also for the purposes of this au sothis is a divine dragon ! a really powerful one and one of the older ones who kinda went off and did her own thing (aka no tolerance for duma and mila's bitching or anankos' whinging)

“I’m going back to Ram village.”

“Hum?” Lukas’ says, his head turning to look at her.

“I want to go back to Ram Village.” Faye says, even if she’s seconds away from the grand ballroom, invited as an honoured guest of the King and Queen, even if she’s been in the castle since the war ended, and it’s hard to imagine a world outside of it. “There’s nothing here for me.”

(Here is Zofia Castle. Here is King Alm and Queen Antiese’s reign. Here is where her heart feels heaviest, where each and every passing day moves her further and further beyond them. As Gray and Tobin crawl deeper into each other's hearts,as Kliff itches to wander across the world.)

(Faye cannot go back to childhood.)

Lukas is sympathetic as always, his faint smile full of concern and care. He’s a man of little variety, but what is there is genuine, is whole, and his honesty feels complete, unlike everyone else’s.

“I’m sure what’s yet to come for you here is on its way.” Lukas says, far more logical than she can ever be. He’s dressed in all the attachments and furnishings of his formal knight uniform, his crimson cape draped over his shoulder, the gold shine of his medals--gold medals, given to him by Alm in a ceremony that felt so detached from their childhood plays and concerts--bring out the brightness of his russet hair.

Faye is officially a Dame of the Kingdom of Valentia, wearing deep violet and cream lace, a gold brooch pinned above her heart. Celica had presented it to her in that same ceremony, asking her to rise as a defender of Valentia, as a defender of the Crown, and the love in Celica’s eyes almost killed her. There needed to be an official ceremony, or so Clair and Clive demanded, and with that came the struggle to come up with titles for their friends.

(“Well hello there, Sir Gray!”

“And hello to you Sir Tobin!”

“And what a lovely day we’re having, aren’t we, King Alm!”

“I would say, Sir Gray, that the day is positively incredulous, wouldn’t you agree, Sir Kliff?”

“I must ask our esteemed Dame Faye for her opinion on the conditions of the day, as per our culture, King Alm.”

“Of course, Sir Kliff, I just feel as if the day is serendipitously perfect, wouldn’t you agree, Sir Gray?”)

There are rarely occasions in Valentia that require this much pomp and flair, but for the first time since the unification of their continents, the King of Fódlan and the King are Valentia are meeting here, in Zofia Castle’s grand hall, and Faye can’t help but enjoy the fact that her final event in the castle comes with so much importance.

Faye is a member of the petty nobility, the rising class of war heroes who travelled from Zofia to Rigel and back again. She is Dame Faye of the Aries Shrine, named after the Shrine next to the village, where Mila in the tomb saw how she wanted to be small and delicate and be a healer on the battlefield, as useful to Alm as possible.

Instead the Goddess gave her a spear and muted gold armour and told her to be a knight for herself first, rather than standing aside to heal someone else.

(In hindsight, she’s glad. Mycen taught her all of the basics and Mycen’s pride in her always, in the worst of her love for him, meant more than any praise from Alm. And now she knows of Mycen’s past in Rigel, how he helped the King in his most dire time, it feels almost as if she can be closer to him, carving her own legacy from his.)

They inch towards the door, as more and more of their friends are presented to the waiting Fódlan convoy, and Faye wishes there was a way she could preserve all of this, savor the last days of this life, where her family is whole, where her friends are happy, and wondering where she belongs in all of this doesn’t matter.

“I can’t help but doubt that.” She says to Lukas, and braces herself as the golden doors swing open, beckoning her into something unknown.

  
  
  
  
  


_Horsebow Moon, 1887_

Fódlan’s unification hits a major snag in the Empire, when the Adriestian population rejects Dimitri as their King, demanding the release of their captured Emperor, and for a member of House von Hresvelg to be the one to join with the Kingdom, rather than be absorbed by it.

Dimitri is on his sixth treaty negotiation, responding to his fourth citizen uprising in the south, when from the ashes of a private villa in East Adriestia are dug up, with the solution to the demands.

“We just found it, your Majesty.” Annette says, presenting an old, worn, leather bound journal, the pages yellowing and curled with age. “It was in a steel box, so I think it’s safe to assume that whoever the author was wanted people to find it. It goes along with what we know so far.”

With care, Byleth peels open the first page, far gentler than Dimitri would’ve been able to, and with tender hands lays the journal on the table. The handwriting is rushed, almost ineligible at times, written with hard stumps of charcoal or hurried ink strokes, words missing in the mess.

_Year 1168_

_Garland Moon_

_As each day comes closer and closer, I fear that Mycen will not make it in time. The healer promised at the end of the Moon, and within the next thirty days the Prime Minister will be here to take her from me. No one has said why or what f... will happen to me when she is gone, but we need to return to Rigel, return to … return to Mycen. King Rudolph will protect me…_

_It has been many moons since I last saw the Emperor's other children…. There is an increase in the amount of mages about the palace… twice people have come for her blood… they wish to test for a crest_

_I’ve been in this villa so long I don’t know what I’ll do when we … I have dreams at night of being able to burn this place to the ground … And should the day ever come that this is found, it will mean I have lost her and or my father will have succeeded. In the off chance that our plans come to fruition, I will be able to leave Adriestia in the knowledge that at least one von Hresvelg child-_

“Surely this can’t mean Edelgard?” Dimitri says, leaning forward. The table seemed to buckle under his weight as he pushed down against the wood, his eye trailing over each and every smudge and ink blot and scratched out line.

“She would’ve been four years old, whereas this child seems to be an infant.” Byleth notes, even if the tilt of her head said another thing. “It would also have to mean your step-mother wrote this.”

“King Rudolph was the former King of Rigel, now the United Kingdom of Valentia.” Ashe explains, gesturing to the line where the King was mentioned. “His son Alm has been ruling for the past four years.”

“There was once a bond between the Empire and Rigel.” Felix says, pushing forward a large tome, straight from the Garreg Mach monastery records chamber. “Rigelian nobility have attended the Officers Academy, just like our guy, King Rudolph, along with his retainer, Alasdair Mycen, and another man, called Joffrey Le Fay.”

Dimitri can see the lines all drawing together, almost like map work in front of his very eyes. He steps away from the journal, pensive as Byleth stands next to him, her small hand flitting into hers. “And from what we know from Enbarr, Morrigan Le Fay was one of Emperor’s last concubines, but died in a fire started by Leicester bandits. Though everyone speculated she’d been taken care of by the same people that carried out the Insurrection against the Emperor.”

Felix nods, “Or, more accurately, by Morrigan and whoever this Mycen man was. A friend of Le Fay, I’d say.”

He’d sent Annette and Felix out on the stray chance that there could be something in the ashes, that they could find something in the former establishment’s cover up, one careless lie, or one terrible cover up, that could explain the trail of blood that led to Edelgard’s hands.

That could explain nine dead children.

(“I don’t want to rule a world where I am ignorant to such crimes.” He’d said, just as he’d pulled the Blue Lions together to help him. Maybe that’s what made him miss Arundel’s true intentions, that he’d done it alone. But connecting these together might make things right with the remainder of the Adriestian nobles, that would ease Ferdinand’s demands and Caspar’s rage and console Linhardt and calm Petra and heal Dorothea hurt and tame Bernadetta’s aggression. Maybe this could be the first step in trying to get it right.)

(It had been a year and a half since the throne room, and Edelgard, locked safely away, would still not speak to him, not really. Hubert, locked half a world away from her, would only speak to Dimitri if Edelgard had given her permission, and it all felt like it was going in circles.)

“So where do we go from here?” Sylvain asks, always the first to propose a plan. “Do we pursue the idea of a hidden von Hresvelg child? A von Hresvelg heir would meet what the nobility want. Someone to step down in Edelgard’s place.”

Dimitri could already feel his head ache at the idea of what the next move was. It felt as if at every turn, there never was a simple answer. “We’ll have to discuss-”

“We have a name!” Ashe gasps from where he, Annette and Ingrid are crowded around the journal.

“It’s faint, but I think I can make out an I.”

“Yvaine.” Byleth reads aloud, as if gifted with a second sight. “It says Yvaine.”

“ _But after my father, I most lovingly call her Faye._ ” Dimitri reads, and doesn’t quite understand what that means for the future.

  
  
  
  
  


Faye comes face to face with the King of Fódlan for the second time completely by chance, when she goes to take the last glass of wine from a server and finds his hand there first.

“Oh, apologies, your Majesty.” She rarely uses language like that with Alm and Celica, something about how long they’ve known each other making it too weird for her to ever address them like that. “You can have it.”

“No, please, I insist.” He bows his head, his smile very polite. “You were here first.”

“But this is Ram wine, your Majesty, I have my whole life to drink it, you’re the guest here.” Maybe it is the other two glasses of Ram wine that she’s had this evening acting as a bad influence, but events like this may never come again, and she’d prefer the King remembering a friendly face than a childish woman blushing and talking over herself. “Now I insist.”

The King’s laugh catches her off guard, almost like a low rumble that crawls up his chest. It’s the warmest thing about him, despite his heavy cloak and his height and his single blue eye peering down at her. “Well, with such a glowing review, I can’t say no.”

“I grew up in Ram.” She hears herself say, followed by a giggle. Balls in Valentia are normally so fun, with how they dragged all of their friends from whatever corner of the continent they dwelled in. This one isn’t unlike the others, but now there’s more people, nobles from Valentia that seemed to sprout up from the ground following the end of the war. Nobles in Zofia and Rigel alike that watched the war go by idly from their mansions and their castles and within the comfort of their world, unwilling to side with the Deliverance with how big of a risk it could’ve been.

(And now they are here, and they are friends with Alm and friends with Celica and made Tobin and Gray laugh the way she does, and they push their daughters onto Kliff and never spare a glance for Faye, Dame of the Aries Shrine, the girl cavalier with no land or husband or claim to anywhere or anything.)

“Really?” He says, nodding at his first taste of the wine. “That’s where Alm is from.”

(Upon meeting, the two Kings realised neither of them enjoyed being addressed with their titles by one another, and with unexpected excitement, the Fódlan King took Alm’s offer.)

“We were childhood friends. Me, Alm, Celica for a bit” She points to where him and Celica are dancing slowly, the swelling violins catching in the air around them. “Tobin, Gray,” She gestures to where her friends are sat by the balcony, their hands clasped together, their faces red from exertion. “And Kliff. We grew up in Ram together.” Kliff stands off with Silque, their heads bent together. 

(It hurt, seeing Kliff and the woman who broke her heart become so close, tied by a bond neither of them wished to speak of, but Silque wanted Rigel, to go off on her own more than Faye, and Faye wanted Alm more than Silque.)

The King’s smile is very soft, an expression he keeps reserved for the woman he brought with him to Valentia, for the tall silver haired man that came with him too. She’s only ever seen him look at Prince Claude with a fond grimace. Faye wonders, only to herself, what memory she’s spurned for him. “I have a set of friends like that too. Only we didn’t always live so close together.”

Faye’s sigh is so deep, and so forlorn, she thinks it might collapse through her chest.“I think I took for granted how nice it was to be with them every day.” She says, before she can stop herself.

The King only nods, and normally, Faye doesn’t feel this understood in a conversation unless she’s talking to Lukas. “And you truly say you had no idea Alm was a Prince? Or that Antiese-”

“Celica, your Majesty, no one calls her Antiese.”

“Alm and Celica, then.” He rolls his eye, and Faye can’t help but giggle into her palm. She rarely makes friends during things like this, rarely connects with someone who doesn’t see her as the additional piece, the extra of them all. Someone who doesn’t know her at all, and someone she doesn’t have to explain herself too. She’s gotten better at meeting new people since the end of the war. “Did you not know they were royal when you were children?”

“Well see, that was the point, wasn’t it? Mycen couldn’t go off telling just about anybody that he was harbouring two royal children. Instead he trained us.” Faye gestures with her hand, to herself, to the castle above them, to the opulence and grandeur and beauty of the world Mycen insured for Celica and Alm. “He trained us so we could protect them, and then he went and became Chancellor before he could tell us what to do next.” 

(“I just feel like I have all of this… fight, left in me. That I don’t know what to do with it. Like it feels. Awful. And hard. And terribly painful.”

Lukas’ eyes were rarely very expressive, but she knew he understood. And if he didn’t, all she could do was hope he never had to.)

“Where is Mycen, anyway?” Faye grumbles, craning her head around the ballroom.

If Dimitri seems put off by her drunk ramblings, he doesn’t make it known. Instead his face pulls down, as if he’s thinking heavily, his eyes trailing the King and Queen at the top of the room. “Were there any other children, in Mycen’s care? Any other royal children? Anything like that?”

Faye shakes her head quickly, a snort bursting from her lips. “Two is intentional, I know that for sure, but a third? No idea. Wouldn’t put it past Mycen.” Her mind seems to blank beyond that, the warmth of the wine spreading through her heart and lungs and brain. “Hey, am I allowed call you Dimitri?”

It seems to snap him out of his thoughts, his eye blinking rapidly. His smile is unsteady, but it still feels genuine. “Of course, I’d like that very much. And you are?”

“Oh? Gosh I can’t believe I never introduced myself.” Faye extends her hand to shake his. “I’m the Dame of the Aries Shrine.” She announces, and the warm buzz in her chest suddenly feels like it’s being dragged down, and she has no idea why. “But you can call me Faye.”

  
  
  
  
  


_Wyvern Moon, 1887_

“I’ll be gone for almost two moons.” Dimitri says, rubbing his hands together. The veranda of Edelgard’s villa wraps around the home, with one side of it pointing westward, the sea breeze wafting through the porch. It’s cold in Adrestia, but still warmer than winter in Faerghus. If it bothers Edelgard, she makes no sound. 

“Valentia is North East of Almyra, so we’re travelling from Derdiu.”

Edelgard’s silence is always oppressive, like it curdles between them until Dimitri can’t stand it anymore and he has to leave. But still, he pushes forward, staring at her from one of the wicker chairs on the porch. Edelgard sits on a chair hung from the porch ceiling, her white hair loose down her back, her feet curled up off the ground. “Do you know where Valentia is?”

“Yes, I do in fact.” She says, with the slightest semblance of her old dryness in her tone. “We received a letter when the King and Queen ascended.”

“Ah, I see.” Valentia united during the war, and much like everything else happening in the world during those five years, Dimitri only found out once he’d been pulled to his senses. “I’m bringing Byleth, and out of sheer bullying Claude has demanded he comes too. He claims it's for diplomacy but I think he can’t stand the idea of Fódlan having a better relationship with Valentia.”

Before the war, before the schism was too big to cross to stop each other, Edelgard would’ve laughed. She might’ve sighed. She may have agreed with his poor joke, or made one of her own. This Edelgard, with one sole red eye and harsh scars running up and down her arms, is silent, peering off into the sea, as if it held all of the answers.

(Sometimes, Dimitri swears the guilt of visiting Edelgard is worse than the guilt from the ghosts of Duscar. At least now he knows he can silence them, bring the voices and ghosts to a halt, but Edelgard is real, how they hurt each other is real, and the guilt seems to want to claw out of his chest, little seeds blooming and blossoming in his lungs, until he can’t breath anymore and he has to return back to where the air is clear.)

“I’ll come visit you as soon as we return. Maybe bring Claude with me, if he has the time to spare.” If it wasn’t for his friends, for Felix and Sylvain and Ingrid, for Ashe and Annette, would he be able to pause for a week and head down to Hresvelg, sit by the sea for half a day, and try to coax something from Edelgard.

Dedue always comes with him. Sometimes, when she can pull herself away, so does Byleth. The sole time he brought Ingrid and Sylvain and Felix, she never let them on the property, much less in the house, and since then Dimitri has been coming alone.

“Are you going to tell her about your findings, Dimitri?” Dedue asked, just as they breached Hresvelg territory and the Church of Seiros priestesses greeted them. After two years, he’s more liberal with his use of his first name, no longer hesitating.

Morrigan Le Faye’s journal burnt a hole in his messenger bag, wrapped in smooth leather and wool to preserve it for the journey. If he finds Mycen in Valentia, he’d need evidence and proof to present him with.

“I don’t wish to get her hopes up. If everything about her family is true, I’d hate…” He trailed off, gripping the reigns tighter. “I’d hate for us to arrive in Valentia only to find out Mycen failed. I’d rather hear it from his mouth first, than hurt her anymore than she already is.”

(Maybe the reason he was looking so hard was out of guilt that he couldn’t protect her from what happened. Had she stayed in Kingdom and stayed with her mother, maybe there would’ve been a way to avoid it. Maybe the mousy haired girl of his childhood would still be there, not staring out to sea. Maybe they could’ve been real siblings, avoided everything that got in the way.)

“Why are you going to Valentia?” Edelgard asks, just as Dimitri is preparing to leave.

“Edelgard, you-”

“You’re on the throne barely two years, what’s more important in Valentia than something happening at home.”

It’s not a question. He can hear how she’s chastising him, and had they been equals, he may have responded harshly.

“Always nice to make allies, is it not?”

“You’re not going to find what you’re looking for, if that’s what you want.” Edelgard’s voice always has the power to drag things to a grinding halt. “Morrigan le Fay couldn't have conceived in the time she was with my father, she was a social climbing concubine that got exiled from the palace for making demands beyond her station.”

“You already knew?” Dimitri asks, until he’s standing next to Edelgard. He can’t bring himself to look down at her, perched in the hanging chair, how her red eye mirrors his eyepatch. It’s hard to look at someone you loved like this, and know it is your fault.

“I don’t know everything, but Hubert once mentioned that after the war was over, there was something waiting for us… waiting for me, in Rigel.” She sounds far away, her words softer than he’s heard from her in years. With a harsh turn of her head, she meets Dimitri’s eye, the bite returned to her. It’s the most she’s spoken to him in one sitting. “You’re looking for a concubine who faked her death, and it certainly won’t help you convince people that Adriestia must join with the Kingdom.”

Dimitri almost wants to ask then what would, then. How Edelgard had infiltrated the Kingdom with Cornelia was years in the making, Dimitri had no way in, only trying his best to be civil with the members of the Black Eagle House.

“I’ll be back to visit you, Edelgard,” He says instead, turning on his heel. “I don’t know what I’ll find in Valentia.”

  
  
  
  
  


Faye finds herself at the front door of the throne room, twisting her hands into her cream apron. If she had any sense she would’ve planned her escape for Ram the morning after the ball, slipping off into the night as the party wound down. Flashbacks of the night before keep coming back, each memory returning with a painful lurch of fear deep into her stomach. There was talking with Dimitri, then dancing with him, then alternating between drinking with Gray and trying to calm Tobin down from his rage at Gray’s drinking. There were worse things in life than being summoned to the throne room to be told off for acting inappropriately with a visiting monarch, she thinks with a queasy grin. Sooner, rather than later, Faye will be on her way back to Ram, and that worry would be worlds away.

Then Gray and Tobin and Kliff arrive, just as unaware as she is.

“I wonder why we’ve all been summoned?” Gray asks, minutes before they were allowed into the great hall.

“I imagine it’s probably some sort of announcement or another. Maybe Celica’s expecting.” Kliff says, aloofly.

“Yeah I think you’re the only person thinking that.” Tobin says, promptly taking action and pushing the doors wide open.

No one could’ve even imagined their true reason for the summoning. When they step in, Dimitri and Prince Claude are standing before the throne. Faye takes her own position, falling in line next to Gray, Kliff and Tobin, opposite from Lukas, Python and Forsyth.

“They’re here to make an announcement.” Celica says, the slightest hint of amusement on her lips.

The two Kings look at one another. Prince Claude gestures with an easy smile, as if giving Dimitri the courtesy to go first. Faye wonders if he remembers last night, if he’ll take the night back to Fódlan with him, and she’ll have the chance to exist somewhere beyond the ballroom.

The man who speaks is not the man from last night. King Dimitri has a capturing stance, his long lance just as tall as him. The cavalier knight in Faye that still trains daily looks intently at the long, sharp blade, at the glowing red jewel. Like Falchion, but entirely more imposing.

“Our true intentions for visiting Valentia are related to Chancellor Mycen. We found correspondence between Sir Mycen and a woman named Morrigan le Fay, a Rigelian noblewoman who was a concubine for Emperor Ionius. We had previously believed she perished in a fire in West Adriestia, but due to recent events, we can see that is not the case. We think she fled Fódlan when the babe was two, escaping some antagonist that wished to take her child from her.” The King turns to Faye, worlds away from the awkward man who drank her wine and asked about her childhood. Who didn’t dance very well but tried his best.

“We believe that child to be you, Dame Faye.”

It takes the Hall several minutes to react. And when it does, it all falls to chaos.

“That’s. That’s impossible.” Faye says, the fabric of her apron falling from her hands. Beside her, she feels Gray, Tobin and Kliff’s stares, the way Alm has risen from his throne to be near them, Celica not that far behind. They all seem to be as confused as one another, bar the passive expression on Mycen’s face. “I can’t be that child, I’m very sorry.” She tries to smile, and be that courageous woman from the night before.

Things only got worse, as Dimitri tried to reason with them, producing a leather bound journal wrapped in wool.

“Mycen tell them it’s not true!” Faye’s voice comes out shrill and dreadful, pushing her friends away from her to stare at the Chancellor. “This can’t be true!”

In the five years since the end of the war, he’s aged quickly, as if raising Alm in Ram was a reprieve from his political career.

It feels like he’s looking through her, and directly back at the King, and that’s all Faye needs to know, that Dimitri was telling the truth.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


(Here is what Faye doesn’t see, after she runs from the Hall, tears blurring her vision.

“Faye, wait-”

“Faye, please come back!”

She’s out of the hall before she can see Celica’s careful glance at the visiting party, at Mycen standing at the side, at Alm, who can’t hide the betrayal from his face. Faye doesn’t see Gray and Tobin and Kliff begin to mutter to each other. She doesn’t feel how the room seems to plunge below the sea. How from this point on, things will ever be the same again, and everyone knows it, even King Dimitri and King Claude.

“Is there anything else you can share with us, Chancellor Mycen?” Celica asks airily. She speaks first because Alm can’t find the words, not just yet. If King Dimitri makes any sound, makes any gesture, Celica doesn’t see it, her red eyes drilled on the man who protected her once before.)

  
  
  
  
  


Faye’s rarely been this grateful for the twisting corridors of Castle Zofia. From the great hall, she can run to the treasure vault, and through the treasure vault she can slip through the servant’s quarters until she’s in the rose gardens, inhaling the sweet scents as she stands over the marble fountain.

Faye thought she was better at confronting things that make her uncomfortable. She thought after everything, after the war, hearing unpleasant things paled in comparison.

Faye tries to count from one to ten and back down again, each number distracted by a hiccup in her chest. Her reflection in the fountain wavers for a split second, the wispy ends of her long braids breaching the water’s surface. 

“Faye, are you out here?” Lukas’ voice cuts through the garden. Faye hears him approach before she feels his cool hand on her back, then pulling his hand back quickly. “Are you alright?”

Rather than answering him, Faye’s shoulders collapse in, and she throws her head into the water.

It’s by Lukas’ hand that she comes up for air, his face strangely calm for such a scene. “That solves nothing.” He says, gesturing to the water dripping down her neck to her shoulders.

“I can’t be a Princess, Lukas, I just can’t be.” She says, her fingers curling into the loose cotton of his undershirt. One of his hands remains in her soaked hair, her matted fringe and layers tangled in his fingers. 

“They could be wrong, we all know that.” He reasons, gently rubbing the back of her neck.

Faye’s laugh is terrible, choked by a small cry from the back of her throat. She feels like a wounded animal, being handled by Lukas’ calm tone. “But that’s the thing, Lukas, my mother’s name _was_ Morrigan. She died when I was fifteen and she never told me anything about my father so I always just assumed-” That he was dead. That he had died years and years ago. That the matter of her birth was something unsavoury for her mother so she never asked after him. “I never thought it would’ve been that.”

Lukas’ chuckle is very faint, a rare sound from him. “I don’t think anyone thought that either. Even Alm looked surprised.”

“But why wouldn’t she tell me?! Why couldn’t she have told me about my father being an _Emperor_.”

“To protect you, Faye.” Lukas says, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world.

“Then why is this happening to me?!”

(Faye didn’t see how quickly Lukas ran from the hall. How he ran through the rose bushes and trampled the violets to get to her. Faye doesn’t see it, but Lukas will find her in the garden with petals in his hair and the little cuts from the thorns on his cheeks.)

“You deserve to be safe, you know that, Faye? And there are so many people who would live and die to keep you that way.”

  
  
  
  
  


“You don’t have to listen to them.” Alm says, his voice shaking. “You don’t owe them anything.”

Faye doesn’t really hear him. There’s only the swaying breeze, the cool earth beneath her hands. For the first time since the war, she misses Ram Village so much it makes her heart ache. The rolling fields surrounding Zofia Castle is the closest she has to the vineyards, and it’s here where she hides as the Fódlan convoy prepares to leave.

(She can never go back to Ram Village.)

“You have a choice, Faye.”

Beside him, Celica doesn’t speak. Faye already knows what she would say.

If she goes with the King, she’ll become Princess Yvain von Hresvelg, and as Yvain she will unite Fódlan across the border. She will stand in front of the people of Enbarr and give their country away. It’s what Dimitri had asked of her, dropping to one knee, his frightening lance laid before her.

(“Yvain von Hresvelg, you’re our only hope.” She brought the King of Fódlan to his knees, )

“I don’t think I do, Alm.” Celica says, as light as she can. Carefully, she places her hand on his. When she was younger and more foolish, this touch would’ve sparked something, kept her heart beating for days and days, clinging to the hope that someday, he wouldn’t pull his hand away. “But thank you anyway.”

“It’s not fair that this was dumped on you!” Alm cries. Even as a King, even as Valiant Alm, he can’t keep his emotions in check, everything bursting out of him at once. Celica is far more composed, and it’s not lost on either of them how Alm’s reaction feels latent, as if four years on, he still doesn’t know how to put into words how he felt when Rudolph died and the crown passed to him.

(“You were never supposed to know.” Mycen said to deaf ears. “Unlike Alm, you were never to know, never to return to Adrestia, and I had to obey your mother’s dying wish that you’d never find out.”)

(Mycen does not believe that he’s done something wrong. He is stubborn like that, and he’s handed it onto her.)

“I’ll come back.” Faye says, and even to her it sounds weak. “I won’t be gone forever.”

Faye had once thought she’d had all of the adventure for a lifetime, yet here it loomed again, and last time she fought for Alm, and fought for the Deliverance, but this is her own choice to make, even if it doesn’t feel like that.

Alm pulls his hand away, only to drag her into a hug.

  
  
  
  
  


“I said this to Celica when she was crowned in the Temple.” Mae says, staring up at Faye with a very serious expression. Her hands are spread over her large stomach, the material of her pink top stretched and ruffled. Faye had hoped to be there for the birth, to meet the first generation to bloom and grow under Alm and Celica’s reign.

Mae cups her face in her hands, the gesture strangely familial, almost motherly. Soon, Mae will have a child, a son or a daughter, and Faye wants to grab her hands off her face and make her promise she’ll never lie to them the way her mother lied to her.

“You’re Faye, always have been, always will.” Mae says, looking deeply into her eyes. “Before there was Yvain, there was Faye, and she matters more to the world.” Mae swallows thickly, tears rimming her pink eyes. “Faye means more to us.”

She can imagine Mae’s soothing words pulling Celica from Anthiese, unravelling them, reminding her that one won’t counteract the other. At least Celica knew, deep down, that Anthiese was there, strangled beneath the waves of Novis.

Faye has always just been Faye.

  
  
  
  
  


“So, bets on for who’s the next secret royal? I’m gonna go with Kliff, just because he already has a secret sister.” Gray says, then turns to Tobin. “Unless you are a secret Royal, because if you are, I’d like to be told sooner rather than later.”

Tobin pushes him off, but it’s in an endearing way. “It makes sense, for Faye to be Royalty.” Tobin’s soft eyes find her. “Makes a lot more sense than Alm being a Prince, I’ll tell ya that much.”

Tobin rests his cheek on the top of her head, and Faye appreciates him for making her feel safe. Gray’s head is on Faye’s knees, his hand stroking the hairy skin of her calf in soothing circles. She leaves tomorrow, out onto the waves, and she’ll land in Deirdru first, then travel through war-torn Fódlan. She ignores the visiting Kings at every turn. She ignores Claude, who tried to reassure her that Almyra had no place in the matters of Fódlan, so he’ll be there with her as a friend, a confidant, someone to slow the sea when the waves got tough.

She’ll ignore Dimitri for as long as she can. She’s still torn, angry at the King of Fódlan for bringing this to her, asking this of her, and then she’s sad, thinking of the awkward man at the Ball, who’s hands fumbled with his glass. The man who was too shy to join in the dancing, even after Alm and Celica had gone rounds and rounds in the ballroom.

The best thing about her friendship with Gray and Tobin is that there are no demands. The two boys who weathered the storm through her days of loving Alm and being left behind. Her two friends who held her up when she fell for Silque and all of the terrible things that came from the aftermath.

They’re the hardest to say goodbye to.

“You’ve always been the best of us.” Gray mutters.

So that’s why she won’t.

  
  
  
  
  


She packs light, still unsure of how long she’ll be away. She does take her armour, hoists Adversity onto her shoulder, and heads in the outside of Castle Zofia, the Fódlan convoy waiting for her. She’d asked Alm and Celica if she could make her own way to Zofia Harbour, rather than remove everyone from the Castle. They’d relented, and after all of the farewells and all of the tears, she feels someone stand tap her shoulder.

Lukas has always worn red. The black sash draped across his chest is new. He smiles down warmly at her, and gestures to the bag he’s holding in his hand.

Faye’s jaw drops.

“Look, before you say anything.” Lukas says, ducking his head. “I’ve already spoken to Alm and Celica, and if I understand correctly, it’s custom in Fódlan for royalty to have a retainer, a personal guard.” The bag drops with a thud against the cobblestone pavement, his hands covering hers. “Would it be too forward of me to ask if I could be that for you, and never leave your side?”

Faye can’t find the words within her, heart stuttering against her chest. Lukas is as calm as ever, just like the day he arrived in Ram to ask for Mycen’s help, as if these requests come easy to him. Faye has spent her whole life chasing after others, that this is new, a whole new feeling that settles under her breastbone. With just one sentence, with just one request, Faye feels wanted, good enough to chase after, good enough to cross the seas for. 

(Good enough to follow into war for.)

“Lukas, that’s, I-”

“Eh, hem! Sir Lukas, I believe you offered to help with my luggage?” Clair says, her shrill voice carrying above the air.

“Uh, luggage?” Faye asks, watching Kliff lope into the courtyard, a small rucksack thrown over his shoulder.

Clair has impossibly blue eyes. The first time Faye met her, in all of her noble glory, with her stunning gold headpiece and her blue armor, she’d feared they’d never get along. Faye always felt so boyish in her armour, atop her horse, her lance slung over her shoulder, out on the front lines. At first for Alm, then she was hit with a stray arrow and had to listen to Tatiana and Mathilda’s scolding while her shoulder healed, then she was on the front lines for herself and for the good of the Deliverance. Clair managed to make war look delicate. Faye doesn’t doubt she gets nightmares like her, why all of Clair’s rooms must be big and open, entirely too large for one woman to fill, but Faye supposes that’s what captivity does to you.

Clair blinks at her. “Did Gray not tell you? Well I suppose it makes sense, his head is like a sieve.” For the brief few months of Gray and Clair’s engagement, wedding planning never went very far, with how determined Gray was to be the most unorganised groom Valentia had ever seen. “I’ve decided I’m coming with you!”

“Clair, you can’t just up and leave Valentia, you’re needed here! You’re the captain of the Pegasus knights!” Faye argues, weakly. She’s so distracted by Clair’s news that she can’t notice that her hand is still pressed between Lukas’.

“Faye, and I mean this as sweetly as possible, but if I’ve learnt anything from the Fódlan convoy, you are about to walk into a royal Court like nothing else the world has ever seen.” Clair’s smile is sympathetic, in her own haughty way, her hand coming to cup Faye’s shoulder. “You will need me if you’re going to survive it.”

(Faye’s never got along with women very well. It makes sense, considering she spent her entire childhood around her boys, or competing the legacy Celica left on everyone, and then she spent the war wondering did she want to _be_ Mathilda or _be with_ Mathilda, and then kissing Silque in improper places like Shrines or Infirmary tents finally gave some answers to why she always felt that way with women.)

She looks at Kliff expectantly. Faye knows, in her heart of hearts, that Kliff does not want to be her retainer like Lukas or her lady in waiting like Clair, but things have been so strained between them since things with Silque ended and ever since he found out about Silque being his sister, that he’s just grateful that she’s here to see her.

“There’s nothing really here for me in Valentia anymore.” Kliff says instead, shrugging. “I want to see the world. This’ll get me there without the hassle of organising my own way.”

Faye smiles, heart clenching. Kliff will make the finest wanderer. An unexpected mercenary in the war, but he’ll find work easily.

“Lady Yvain?” Byleth, Dimitri’s very serene but very intense friend calls. Faye doesn’t respond at first, until Lukas’ other hand gently turns her shoulder in the direction. She’ll have to get used to that, or rely on Lukas every time someone calls her name. “Are you ready to go?”

Faye looks at Kliff and Lukas and Clair in front of her, at the entire Deliverance that’s come to see her off, friends she had to depend upon in the worst of times, in the worst of places. She’s not entirely alone, she realises, pressing kisses to Celica and Alm’s cheeks. She’ll have Lukas and Clair, and everything Mycen taught her, despite all the lies, and she’ll have the years of Alm and Celica’s reign to show her what true leadership is, and Mathilda’s pride and whatever heartache Silque put her through to help her in Fódlan.

“Are you ready to go?” Lukas asks her. It’s one of the first things he ever said to her, just before they left the village, and his calmness seemed to ground her, pulling her out of the unknown.

Faye doesn’t have an answer for him, just like back then. She squeezes his hand instead, and lets him lead her to the carriage.

(Faye cannot go back to childhood. But that’s the point of it.)


	2. studying about that good old way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What did I say about the court~” Clair whistles lowly, before plastering on what Faye can only dub as Clair’s ‘people smile’, a very dashing, very refined smile. She curtsies, her knees bending. “It is most honorable to meet you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i . this is so indulgent . im also literally just testing my capacity to write something vaguely political that makes sense . i completely reinvented the crest analyzer to be a dna test too , bc , why not ??? why not . it was a major plot hole bc i figured there needed to be proof of them being related . and here it is . apologies if clair comes across as very ooc but theres a reason for her crest to Be The One She Has .

Faye arrives in the Garreg Mach Monastery on the eve of the Ethereal Moon, after a moon and a half at sea, and another moon riding through Fódlan, catching glimpses of the new world she’s apart of. She arrived in Derdriu after the month of sailing, arriving in one of the most vibrant cities the world could possess, with long waterways, some of the greatest marketplaces she’s ever seen.

“This was the capital city of the former Leicester Alliance.” Claude explained, taking her on a personal tour of the heart of the city, along wide streets adorned with bright tiles. The moon they spent on their journey was filled with Dimitri, Byleth and Claude alternating between teaching the four of them on the state of affairs in Fódlan. Faye finished school at sixteen, just a year before the rest of them, but now she’s fairly confident she knows more about Fódlan history than Valentian.

There’s a lot of unsavory elements to Fódlan history. There’s tragedy and triumph, rebellion and revolution. The once divided continent is one, but unlike Valentia, there’s cracks in the still-fresh foundation, an uncertain future lying ahead of them.

“But hey,” Claude said, elbowing her gently. She knows Claude was once the leader of the Leicester Alliance, and with the agreement of the other Dukes that made up the Alliance, gave Leicester back to the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus. “That’s why you’re here. You’ll have to rub shoulders with some former Empire generals and Ministers, but you’ll be fine.”

Faye had nodded shakily, before insisting he brought her to his finest hidden gems of Derdriu.

On a map, the Garreg Mach Monastery is in the heart of Fódlan, with veins and arteries that kept the Church well connected. They arrive in the Oghma Mountains just before nightfall, her first glimpse of the Monastery is shrouded in darkness, too tall for her to see.

A lone archer comes to meet them, his grey hair silver in the moonlight. He has a spring of freckles on his face, a warm smile, and whole casement of rations, presenting them to Dedue in front of the fire.

“Ashe Ubert, your-” He pauses, looking at Dimitri with a fear-struck expression, something that makes Faye’s heart lurch. Dimitri nods, waving with his hand. Ashe continues. “Your highness.” And with that he bows. “A pleasure to meet you.”

Faye doesn’t know how to react immediately. The first time anyone bowed to Alm, he crouched onto the floor to pull them up. And even in his court, no one bows, no one thinks themselves to be lower than him. The first thing Alm did as king was take a sledgehammer to the stairs of the throne room and chisel away the pedestal.

“Thank you very much, but there’s no need for that.” She reaches out and touches his shoulder, urging him to rise. “Just call me Faye.”

Ashe looks to Dimitri again, his smile weary.

She feels a flash of irritation hit. “Yes, not your highness. And not Yvaine either.”

“I hope they’re quicker to drop the titles with you then they are with me.” Dimitri says with a sigh, watching Ashe return to Dedue. Dedue compromises between the two, and calls her Lady Faye.

“It’s rather improper, I’d say.” Clair mutters. Even in Valentia, she had an issue with how casual Alm was. Clair doesn’t care for social rules or class systems, but she does care for proper titles for the proper people, and manners, and correct fashion and gestures. Faye gives her a subtle pinch on the arm. “What? He is the King, after all.”

“Of course, Lady Clair, but at this point the Blue Lions are family, and I’d never ask them to call me anything but Dimitri.” He looks up, his tent pitched, the blue fabric swaying. It’s a frigid night, too cold for camping, but making the ascent is unwise at night. “Tell me, Ashe, have they arrived?”

“Everyone’s been here since the week after your departure. It’s practically driving them mad, especially Felix.”

Dimitri nods, pleased. “And what of the rest of them?”

“Oh, uh, yes! They arrived last week, and we’ve given them their old dorm rooms from the Academy days.” 

Faye goes to ask what they mean, until Lukas’ hand is at her shoulder, his smile easy. She doesn’t know how she would’ve survived the past few weeks if it wasn’t for him. “Clair has said she’s settling in for the night, so I’d be wary when you enter the tent.”

Faye grumbles at that. Sharing a room on the open seas with Clair, then every tavern room from Deirdru to the heart of Fódlan was practically a mission all in itself. Their tents had been far enough away from each other when they were with the Deliverance, but finding out Lady Clair snored so loudly has quickly become the highlight of her trip.

“You should rest.” Kliff says, at her side suddenly. The minute they disembarked in Deirdru, it took both Dimitri and Claude to talk him out of recklessly wandering off alone. At Garreg Mach, they’d give him all the maps he’d ever need. “We’re taking the climb in one go.”

“That’s a very impressive way of saying it’ll only take us three hours to get up there.” Faye teases. During the war she was taller than him, and now he stretches above her, his hair much shorter now, clipped at the edges and floppy on the top.

“Whatever,” He mumbles, before ducking into his own tent.

The next morning, they rise with the sun. Clair is surprisingly chipper for someone who slept on the ground, urging Faye out of the bed.

“Sir Dedue was very helpful in showing me a nice creek I could wash my face in.” Clair says, leaning over Faye. She looks far too pleased with herself. “And then Sir Ashe was most kind with helping me load my luggage onto the cart he brought with him last night.”

Faye squints, gasping when the realization hits her. “Clair, no!”

“Why not!”

“I’ve seen you do this before!” Faye hisses, trying to keep her voice down. “Do you not remember what happened?!”

“I think I’d remember the wedding ceremony I had to flee in the middle of perfectly well, Faye!” Clair snaps, crossing her arms with a glare.

Faye feels bad for even bringing it up now, watching Clair deflate into herself. Carefully, Faye scooches forward, the chill of the morning making her skin rise. She takes Clair’s hand in hers, squeezing their fingers tightly. Distantly, she can’t help but feel like she’s been here before, but on the entire different end of the spectrum, watching someone torture themselves over people they can’t have. Faye needs to say what Clair needs to hear, but also what she wants to hear, so she’ll never run away from her the way Faye did from everyone who tried to help.

“It’s early days. You don’t don’t know who you’ll meet.” Faye says, and smiles. “I wouldn’t put everything into the first two men you met on the side of a hill.”

Clair laughs at that, and squeezes Faye’s fingers. “Well, I suppose there is some truth to your words. But I’m holding you to them. I better leave this place with a ring on my finger or at least with a dozen, no more or less, noble men vying for my hand.”

Faye hasn’t thought about romance since the disaster that was Silque, but it feels nice to talk about mundane things like this, even with the weight of the world on top of her.

“Breakfast?” Faye suggests, and Clair nods enthusiastically.

There’s a number of small villages imbedded into the mountains on the trail to Garreg Mach, some in better shape than others. Seven years ago, a dragon sprouted from the castle during an Imperial attack, and the rebuilding has been completed on the Monastery since six moons after the war ended. It’s an easy climb, and about halfway up Faye can see the towers and the tall buildings. It’s impressive, and formidable, and the last time Faye felt this way she was about to enter the Duma Temple.

Places of worship don’t feel the same anymore. Not even her Aries Shrine. Garreg Mach Monastery is no exception.

She’s led into a reception hall, a strange urgency to the King and his retainers’ actions. Clair asks three times about where they will be sleeping, until Claude, rather helpfully, quips that there are people that need to be met. Kliff is handed to a monk willing to show him some of the texts in the library on the floor above, but before he leaves, he squeezes Faye’s shoulder, and it fills her with sunlit courage.

“Faye, allow me to introduce you to the Blue Lions, Faerghus’ finest.” Dimitri beams, his smile the brightest she’s seen the entire time she’s known him. From their time travelling together, he’s spent more than enough time telling her about the Blue Lions, who they were and where they came from, the general gist of their family history. At this point, it feels like putting a name to a face, rather than meeting a whole group of new people, but that doesn’t ease Faye’s anxieties.

“Duke Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Lady Annette Fantine, Lord Sylvain Jose Gautier, Lady Ingrid Galatea and Lady Mercedes von Martritz. Then of course Lord Ashe Ubert, and you know Dedue very well.”

“What did I say about the court~” Clair whistles lowly, before plastering on what Faye can only dub as Clair’s ‘people smile’, a very dashing, very refined smile. She curtsies, her knees bending. “It is most honorable to meet you.”

Faye can’t help but awkwardly scratch the back of her neck at the action, wishing the ground would swallow her up. But this only proves Clair’s hypothesis; she needs her more than she thought.

“Blue Lions, meet Lady Yvaine von Hresvelg. She’ll be staying in Garreg Mach for the foreseeable future.”

Faye knew it was fruitless to ask how long she’ll be here, a question too lofty to give a proper answer. Alm had demanded it, of course. Faye smiles tightly at the nobles, bending her head at the neck, her nerves too frayed to attempt to curtesy.

“Eh, hem!” Clair coughs, looking at Dimitri with a glare that has drained the blood from both Tobin and Gray’s faces.

Dimitri does flush at his, stumbling over his words. “Oh, of course, and her lady in waiting, Lady Clair Tiernan, and her retainer, Sir Lukas Petrou.”

The Blue Lion class stare intently at her, and absentmindedly, Faye smooths her braids, fixes her brown travelling wear, suddenly self-conscious. They look disappointed, she can’t help but note, the way their eyes trail over her, and this is the first time in her life she’s felt like people are more afraid of her than she is of them.

“Well, she’s a right ringer for Edelgard.” Lord Sylvain says bluntly, earning sharp looks from the rest of the Blue Lions.

“Sylvain!” Lady Ingrid hisses, elbowing him.

“What?” He holds his hands up, gesturing to her with a loose finger. “I’m just saying what we all think.”

“Not so loud though!” Lady Annette whines, then looks at Faye, very sympathetically. “Not in front of Lady Yvaine, at least.”

“I’m sorry for Sylvain over there, he doesn’t have a lot of tact, even when he’s right.” Lord Felix says, and looks her up and down again.

Faye doesn’t know what Edelgard looks like. Realising she had a sister was a secondary revelation to finding out she was royalty. Edelgard started a war, invaded innocent people, attacked a place of worship, all the things the Deliverance fought against, and Faye apparently looks like her. And if Edelgard looks like her, she must be a very plain looking Princess, with Faye’s straw colored hair and her big brown eyes, her short stature, maybe even with Faye’s weight on her hips and on her thighs. Edelgard is also, apparently, no more than three years older than her, and Faye spent the voyage trying to stop herself from imagining how different her life would’ve been if she grew up with an older sister, like Gray and his sisters, like Tobin and his younger siblings.

(When Silque had told her about her and Kliff, it felt almost like the world was playing a trick on her. Things like that didn’t just happen in the world, not in wars, but somehow Silque and Kliff had found each other, and it began the unravelling of her and Silque’s relationship.)

“Not so much in the eyes.” Claude says gently. 

“I thought that too.” Dimitri says from behind her, and Faye is only somewhat shocked, concerned how long he’s been thinking that. She’s desperate to know all of a sudden who he sees when he looks at her; the lost Edelgard, Lady Yvaine, or Faye from Ram village? 

“Please,” Faye says weakly, twisting her hands together. “There’s no need for Yvaine. Everyone just calls me,” She falters, Mae’s words echoing, and her resolve steels. “My name is Faye, and I’d like to be called that.”

Faye tries to stop herself from melting when Lukas smiles at her, his russet eyes creasing with pride. 

“And our other guests?” Dimitri asks, running a hand down his face. He sounds tired. “It’s best we get this part over with.”

With a nod, two doors from the right side of the end of the room swing open, and after some time, four people walk through, flanked by two people dressed in blue.

Dimitri spent less time sharing information about them, but she knows who they are, and she knows what they did.

“Ferdinand von Aegir, Caspar von Bergliez, Linhardt von Hevring and Bernadatta von Varley.”

Ferdinand has long red hair that’s tied at the nape of his neck, dressed in a long cream woolen jacket. When he looks at Faye, she can’t help but feel threatened, as if the anger behind his eyes have sought her out specifically. She can’t blame him really, not when his title and land has been stripped from him, not when he’s been chaperoned by Kingdom escorts, not when he lost the war.

(Dimitri looks uncomfortable when he dismisses the guards. Faye wonders what he thinks about having to exert power like this. It must be strange for everyone, how a classmate can become an enemy, how an enemy can become your King, how your King has known you at your best and worst and now has so much control over you.)

Dimitri dismisses the guards, and the tension in the room lessens, but only slightly.

Caspar’s eyes widen when he looks at her, the entire opposite of the Blue Lions and Ferdinand’s stare. Faye can’t help but blush when he sees her. “Holy Seiros, she looks just like Edie.”

“They are sisters, Caspar, do try to remember that.” Linhardt says with a long drawl. Dimitri had explained Linhardt will have an important role to play in the first few steps of the negotiations; proving the relation between Faye and Edelgard.

Beside him, Bernadatta shakes like a leaf, and Faye feels a pang of sympathy rip through her. Bernadatta looks so gentle, so kind, and so unlike the woman who set fire to the ballista during the battle of Gronder Field. Faye wasn’t there, but she knows that war makes people reassess their boundaries, and how far they’d go for the cause, how that changes even the best of people.

“Is it time, your highness?” Linhardt asks. From beside her, she feels Lukas tense, even if his face remains the same placid expression.

“Faye, would you mind following me?” Dimitri turns to her, his smile gentle. He’s good at sensing when Faye feels unsure of what’s happening, but not quite as receptive to her to explain.

“Where are we going?” Lukas asks, the first thing he’s said since they entered the hall.

“There’s an office on the second floor of the monastery that has a device called a Crest Analyzer.” Dimitri explains, his furs dragging on the floor behind him. From the Reception Hall, she’s led to a corridor with a set of stairs, the winter chill drafting through the open door.

“It’ll be a tight fit,” Claude says, after the Imperials and the Blue Lions ascend first. Clair sends her a quick, frantic look before she heads up, her blue eyes darting to Dimitri. Lukas is less overt with his hesitation with Dimitri, and he waits with Faye.

After crossing the sea and watching how Dedue and Dimitri interacted with one another, Lukas has found a pattern to copy. Faye didn’t realise during the war just how much she appreciates his company until they spent entire days together again, the only companions each other needed. She’s learnt a lot about Lukas in the years since the war ended, but she’d forgotten some things that travelling on the road with him brought back. Like how he looks fresh in the morning, hair mussed from sleep, his words still groggy and tired. How quickly it takes him to pitch tents, how good he is at haggling with innkeepers and tavern maid, how sincere he is when everyone’s irritable and tired after days and days of travelling.

Lukas was the greatest asset to the Deliverance Army, and Faye didn’t even realise it.

There’s a set of locked double doors around the left corner, the wood finely carved. The second floor of the monastery reminds Faye of the estate manor Alm had gifted to Gray and Tobin when they got married. It’s all dark brick with slim windows, a far cry from the smooth yellow sandstone of Castle Zofia, or the pearl toned bricks in the temples and fortresses in Rigel. But like everything in Garreg Mach, it rings hollow, a wary emptiness clinging to each and every corner. Faye can imagine what this place looked like when the doors were open, when the monastery the bustling hub of academia, of research, of diligence, the place that Dimitri had told her about.

He nudges her into one of the offices, a tight space with all of the books and furniture. They’ve moved the desk and chairs back, leaving a wooden round panel on the floor, a golden jewel levitating above it. Faye feels her knees tremble looking at it, the sinister energy of the device coming at her in waves. Faye grew up with magic in her home, watched Gray train to become the best Mage he could, saw through Luthier and Delthea and Celica and Mae and Boey how magic could be a brightness in the world, but Faye has always held magic at an arm’s length.

Clair looks at it questioningly. “This is 100% safe, of course?”

Linhardt nods lazily, assembling a selection of sheets and books. “Perfectly safe. Everyone in this room has been in front of one at one stage or another.”

Byleth’s hand moves to her shoulder, the warmth seeping through her brown cloak. Byleth’s smile is encouraging, almost a source of strength in itself. “I understand how you feel, but it’s harmless, really.”

“This will also check that Edelgard and Faye truly are sisters, of course?” Dimitri asks Linhardt, but he’s staring pointedly at Ferdinand. It explains Ferdinand’s disgust of her, he doesn’t truly think she’s all who they say she is. Faye can’t help but agree.

“Yes, as I’ve explained before, your majesty.” Linhardt says. “But I can’t help but say, Professor Hanneman should be the one doing this.”

“Professor Hanneman fought for the Kingdom during the war, with him conducting the test it would be easy for Imperials to assume we forced the results.” Dimitri says with a sigh. It’s somethin Faye hadn’t considered, and despite this, Linhardt only shakes his head, returning to the preparations.

“Professor Hanneman also wouldn’t tolerate the use of his device for such matters.” Ferdinand says, the first time Faye has heard him speak. His voice is very refined, and regal, the same noble lilt to it that Clive and Clair and the other minor nobles from the Deliverance had.

“Lady Yvaine, I’ll need a sample of blood.” Linhardt says instead, as casual as anything, and he reaches out to hold her hand.

“M-my blood?” She snaps her hand back, her eyes finding Byleth’s, then Clair’s, then Lukas’. His brow is bent, a curious curve in his mouth makes it look like he’s scowling. The room feels too full and too much all at once, like the walls are about to close in on her.

“Let her do it herself, Linhardt.” Mercedes suggests, taking the ornate knife from his hand.

Lukas takes the knife from Mercedes, and on the other hand, takes Faye’s wrist, his long fingers wrapping around her gently. He turns her hand over, running his thumb diagonally across the lines of her palm, grounding her to his touch, everything else in the room falling away. Faye meets his eyes, and nods, too numb to do it herself.

With deft skill, he makes a small incision on the tip of her pointer finger, the blood rising to the surface and flowing out in small drops. It lands on a mesh disk, the glow faint, and with a sterile brush, Linhardt sweeps at the blood to spread it around the sheet thoroughly. When he’s done, he bends down to the wooden panel and opens it, inserting the disk, the jewel spinning quickly as it activates. Purple light fills the whole room, building into a burst of color, hovering in the air for a second, before it melts away.

Faye doesn’t even notice that her finger is healed until Mercedes stands before her, her finger held between her hands. Her smile is kind, and Faye feels like she’s met someone like her before, in circumstances just as strange, with her heart still beating in fear. Lukas’ hand drops hers, and Faye reaches back to knit their fingers together, a small gesture, but it keeps her safe.

“See, just as we’d assumed.” Linhardt remarks, and Faye remembers why she’s even there.

“And what is that, exactly?” Faye asks timidly, looking from Linhardt to Dimitri.

“It means you weren’t born with a Crest.” Dimitri says, his voice gentle, looking away as Linhardt looks for whatever disk had Edelgard’s information on it. Whoever was in control of this system must’ve been very detailed with his research, keeping everything labeled in wooden square buckets, arranged neatly around his office like stacked coffins. “We’ll run Edelgard’s through yours and find a genetic match, and then we’ll know.”

Faye can’t help but wonder if Dimitri shares Ferdinand’s doubt. All the air leaves the room, as Lindardt bends down again. It would be funny, Faye thinks, watching how Linhardt layers the disks, if she wasn’t actually Edelgard’s sister, and all of this was for nothing. There’s still that reluctant snag in her heart that hopes this is the case.

When Dimitri explained Crests to her, she didn’t think much about them. They reminded her, more than anything, of Alm and Celica’s brands, but Alm and Celica being connected through lofty things like fate and destiny was vastly different to what Dimitri had explained. There were consequences in the Crest system, so far reaching it drove Edelgard to revolution.

The device brightens, Edelgard’s information inserted, the two sets of data fighting against each other, until the same patterns repeat and repeat in a green light bubble, indicating some kind of relation. It’s a definite answer, the one the Imperial nobles have been in denial about since her mother’s journal was found, and it hits Faye with a gentle impact, that this is real, and Faye is, by birth, not by choice, a member of House Hresvelg, that she has a sister, somewhere in Fódlan, that she’s never met, and has no idea who she is. 

I want to meet her. Faye thinks, and almost says it, until Dimitri’s eyes widen.

(This reading says this is only the beginning, and this is not the hardest thing in her path.)

“Linhardt, what does Edelgard’s readings mean.” He asks, casting a desperate glance.

“Sorry?” Linhardt asks, blinking lazily. Beside him, Caspar sighs, his teeth grit together, and Annette has found Bernadetta a chair to sit on, settling her down with a sweet smile.

Faye looks at the light and frowns. She didn’t understand what she was looking at, but there’s something vile about the way Edelgard’s blood--dried, nearly a decade old, a relic of a time before--was arranged on the disk. Two separate, distinct patterns glowed from the device, one running in circles, one running in overlapping lines. Dimitri’s face doesn’t ease the tension.

“Does this mean…” Dimitri trails off, grabbing at the sheets left on the desk. “Does this mean Edelgard has two Crests?”

Ferdinand’s sigh is heavy as he meets Faye’s eyes, the closest to defeat she’s ever seen. Ferdinand reminds Faye of Berkut, with that same, pent up fury that comes from watching everything you’ve ever worked for fall apart. Dimitri told him about the Bridge of Myrddin, and how he fled, of Gronder Field, how every step of the Empire’s defeat stood The Prime Minsiter, watching as it all burned to the ground. There’s still a fire to him, unquenching and determined, flickering in his eyes, but for now, on this battlefield, he’s lost, and whatever secret he hid for Edelgard has come to light, before he even had the power to stop it. 

Faye suddenly feels invasive, like she should not have seen that. If she could go back and do it again, she wouldn’t give her blood over, they’d just have to make do on Morrigan’s journals and Mycen’s word, and this revelation would be kept secret forever.

“Is it even possible to have two crests?” Dimitri wonders out loud, looking to Linhardt with urgency. “I’ve never heard of anything like it.”

“Lysithea has two crests.” Annette says very quietly, looking unsteady with her admission. “She never told me how, or what happened, but it’s not… so abnormal.”

Linhardt’s neck stiffens as his posture goes ridgid. It’s a barrage of questions all at once, Ferdinand’s piercing stare pulsing through him and through Faye. She wishes, more than anything, for this conversation to end, and never speak of crests again. Lukas’ seems to sense this, and he squeezes her fingers twice, pulling her back to the room.

“Will Lysithea be coming for the treaty negotiations?” Faye finds herself asking, being mindful of what she says. The room zeroes in on her, every head turned. “Maybe we can ask her about it, if Edelgard’s crests are such a mystery.”

Dimitri shakes his head, dragging his hand down his face, almost trying to scrub off all of the news of the day. “I’d like to try asking Edelgard before troubling Lysithea, I can’t imagine the nature of this being exactly easy to speak about.” Faye’s heart leaps into her throat. That yearning, that urge to meet Edelgard comes back again, but suddenly it’s not that far off.

“I think it’s best if we finish up for the day.” Claude breaks the tension, his easy voice lilting over the room. There’s a sudden flurry of movement, everyone shuffling to the door, and Faye tries to make her way to the Adrestian convoy.

“Eh, hem! Sir Linhardt, good Sir, may I ask a question?” Clair interrupts, the room plunged back into action. Faye bites back the urge to groan, willing for Clair to be patient for once.

“Yes, Lady Clair?” Linhardt replies. “Linhardt is fine, no need for Sir.”

“I would like to see if I have one of those... Crests.” Clair blinks. The size of her smile, the eagerness in her tone, leads Faye to believe Clair is deadly serious, wanting her own chance of it.

Linhardt looks to the rest of the room, leaving Dimitri to pour over Edelgard’s records. Everyone would rather ignore the King in the corner, and the feral glint in his eyes, but Byleth nods, granting her permission.

Again, Linhardt receives her blood, sets it into the device. There’s a brief wait, a bright glow, and shouts coming from the Blue Lions once it's done.

“Get the fuck out!”

“That’s impossible!”

“I can’t believe this!”

“Is that even possible?!”

The crest glowing from the analyzer looks like a star, with several points flitting outwards. It looks pretty, Faye thinks, squinting from below. If not familiar, like one she’s seen before.

“The first known case of a Crest of Blaiddyd manifesting outside of a citizen of Fódlan This is a most interesting development.” Linhardt says, and scribbles down a stray note.

“You have a Crest of Blaiddyd?” Dimitri asks, staring at Clair with, what Faye can only call, abject horror.

“What? Is that difficult to attain?” Clair simply blinks.

“It’s just only one of the most coveted Crests in history, but sure, yeah, pretty easy to get.” Sylvain says. He’s still shaking his head, as if he truly cannot believe his eyes.

With another faint glow, Linhardt inserts Dimitri’s disk, his blood arranged in that brilliant star pattern. “There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for that. You most likely share a common ancestor, but your crest looks much weaker than his highness'... interesting indeed.”

“So, what you are saying is, I am not a member of the Faerghan royalty, but there is a relation between myself and Lord Dimitri?”

“You don’t listen very well, do you?” Linhardt cocks his head, somewhat amused.

Clair crosses her arms, suddenly in a mood. Linhardt is so far from what Clair would ever want in a suitor that Faye actually feels relieved. “Excuse me for trying to understand as much as I can. Myself and Cousin Dimitri here-”

“Cousin Dimitri?” Felix snickers, earning a long and hard eye roll from the King. Even Lukas can’t keep the grin from his face, clearly enjoying whatever nonsense was taking place.

Clair doesn’t even grant him a reaction, relentless in seeing her tangent to the end. “-have a lot to catch up on. Oh! Clive will be so thrilled! I’ll have to write Mathilda too! And Gray! And Tobin!”

“Did you not notice the power that comes with bearing a Crest, feeling its activation?” Dimitri asks, leaning forward. “The Crest of Blaiddyd is not an easy thing to control-”

“-Well, it seems I’ve managed to master it fairly well.” Which is true, whatever additions Clair is granted through the Crest made her a beast on the battlefield, and she always was stronger than Gray and Tobin put together. They blamed it on the fact that mages and archers don’t need to be so strong, until Boey from Celica’s army arrived, and he could lift twice the weight of them.

Dimitri looks at his wits end, as if all of the stress of the day is beginning to pile on, and entertaining Clair is the last thing he needs.

A bell rings, deep and loud, reverberating around the monastery is heard, and all talk of Crests and family and blood are dropped. Faye is told by Claude, with a cheery smile, that they’re still waiting for some guests to arrive. She won’t see the Imperials for a few days, and she watches with her hand clutching Lukas’ arm as Linhardt and Ferdinand and Caspar and Bernadetta are led away.

The next two days drag on sluggishly, Faye spending more time in the bedroom she’s been given than outside, exploring the monastery. Clair approves of the kitchens and the training grounds, Lukas thinks the green house and the knights hall are impressive.

(They both stay away from the Cathedral, and Faye understands why.)

She goes back to avoiding the nobility, and spends her entire day curled up in bed, asking herself over and over again why on earth she decided to do this. When she felt like this during the war, and the anxiety and uncertainty felt like it would consume her, she’d remember she was fighting for Alm, and then she had Gray and Tobin and Kliff, and what scared her no longer frightened her. But this is different, and she’s still recovering from their time with the Crest Analyzer, hoping Clair and Lukas’ questions hadn’t given them a reason to be suspicious of them. She turns over in her bed, and doesn’t leave her room that day.

Faye is barely awake on her third morning in Garreg Mach when a monk comes to her door, stating that Clair is waiting for her in the Blue Lion classroom. Faye finds her after a bit of aimless walking, finding the classrooms next to the training grounds. The Officer’s Academy is still closed, unlikely to reopen for a few years, but the rooms are well kept, almost kept in waiting, and the blue painted glass casts soft patterns of light onto the cobblestone floor.

Clair has always been the most sociable of them all. She was more forward with how she felt about Alm than Faye ever was. She seamlessly integrated into Gray and Tobin’s hearts, so it doesn’t come as a shock to Faye that she’s managed to make friends with all of the Blue Lion women, on her knees in front of a large fireplace, heaps of fabric sitting next to her.

Clair’s face lights up when she sees her, turning to face the door. “Faye! At long last! Look! They’re planning a wedding!” She squeals, as Faye cautiously takes her first steps into the room, nodding her greetings to Annette, Ingrid and Mercedes. They sit on benches at the fireplace, some of the tables pushed away. The room feels empty, the dusty Blue Lion banners on the wall hang limply, as if they haven’t roared in years.

“I’ve offered my assistance, and they certainly need it!”

Ingrid makes a short sound of indignation, but Mercedes shushes her, her face stern.

“Who’s getting married?” Faye asks, turning to face them.

“Oh, uh, that’s me!” Annette says, sheepishly, her face flushed. “I’m marrying Duke Fraldarius in two moons.”

“That is, of course, wishful thinking.” Clair whispers, loud enough for Mercedes to turn her glare on her.

“Clair said she helped organise the Valentian Royal Wedding in less than four weeks.” Annette says, a hopeful gleam in her eye.

The four weeks between the death of Duma and the Unification of the Kingdoms still feels like a blur to Faye. It was four weeks of Celica as the sole monarch of Zofia, until Alm, and therefore Rigel, were joined together. It wasn’t until the ceremony were Zofia and Rigel officially united, both in paper and in name, and Alm was crowned as Celica’s King.

Faye remembers music. She remembers the swelling Zofian violins and the thundering Rigelian drums. She remembers dancing, spinning across a crumbling ball room in Clair’s borrowed dress, the green skirts flaring with every twirl. The feast was modest, considering the state of Valentia at the time, but the celebrations poured out of Zofia Castle, out onto the streets, to the neighboring regions, to the coasts, to every little Ram Village up and down the continent.

It set a precedent for Alm and Celica’s reign,

“Yes, but Celica had to wear her mother’s wedding dress and Alm wore the wedding suit made for his cousin’s ceremony. You should see what I can do with a bit of time on my hands! Like my brother’s, or my own, or-”

“Your own?” Annette blinks, but Clair has an interesting ability of selective hearing.

“Or Boey and Mae’s.” Clair’s face twists for a second, ignoring the women’s wide eyed stares. “Well, I suppose I didn’t have a lot of time for Boey and Mae’s, but I’m sure we’ll find out the truth once we get told the baby’s birthdate.”

“That’s a lot of weddings at the end of a war.” Ingrid says, with a shaky laugh.

“Oh, but doesn’t that sound so exciting, Ingrid?” Mercedes asks, her smile serene. Faye likes Mercedes, likes how safe she makes Faye feel when she’s wandering aimlessly around Garreg Mach, a friendly face amongst everyone else. She’s quite like Tatiana in a lot of ways, more calm, less scatterbrained, but just as kind, but the parts unlike her are too close to Silque for Faye’s own comfort.

(She keeps Mercedes at a distance.)

“That’s part of the post-war process, I guess.” Faye shrugs, taking a seat across from Annette, peering into the notebook on her lap. There’s sketches of flowers and dress patterns, table plans, and small notes scribbled into the margain. Faye doesn’t know how long Annette has been waiting to become the Duchess of Fraldarius, but her notes are certainly extensive.

“What else is involved in that?” Annette asks, her gaze curious.

The post-war years for Valentia and Fódlan are two very different times. A year and a half into Alm and Celica’s reign, all of the legal work had been ironed out, the country steadily rising to its feet as one nation. The first few months had been difficult, a disorganised mess of regions and land disputes and trying to tie together a peaceful solution. There was widespread poverty, famine and disease to deal with, as as a Knight of Valentia there was always something for Faye to do. She supposes peacebuilding is never easy, but she’s come to realise how blessed Valentia was when the war ended.

It wasn’t the worst of times, she recalls with fondness, and Faye can’t keep the teasing lilt out of her voice. “Well, we called it a baby boom, but the Valentian population is already on its way to having pre-war numbers, if the census is to be correct.”

Annette’s face drains, her book slamming closed. “Really?”

Clair flips her long blond hair over her shoulder, grinning up at Annette from the floor. “Oh yes, my brother’s had two children in four years. I think Mathilda might maim him for taking her away from the Knights any longer.”

“Your sister-in-law is a knight?” Ingrid says, more engrossed in the conversation since it began.

“Mathilda isn’t just a knight,” Faye says, unable to keep the pride and wonder out of her voice. The first time Mathilda saw Faye, in her dented gold armor, her lance slipping from her shoulder, and all of the fight inside of her, she’d praised everything she did right in the battle, and coached her through what she did wrong. She’d taken her under her wing at that point, even letting her wield her prized lance, lovingly named Diana. “She’s the Captain.”

“And a wife?” Ingrid’s eyes narrow, her expression perplexed.

“And a mother?” Annette quips.

Faye and Clair share a curious look, the stark cultural differences between Valentia and Fódlan suddenly scathingly apparent. Valentia isn’t without flaws, isn’t without deep rooted issues, still hasn’t found a way to right the wrongs of the Duma Faithful, and all of its abuses against the witches. There’s bandits wrecking havoc, there’s the factors that drive people to become bandits, there’s still places of famine and disease. What was once Rigel is still considered struggling compared to former Zofia, what once was Zofia is struggling with providing for the whole country, but at the center, there’s Alm and Celica, and they’d never give up on helping as much as they could.

“Is that… not allowed?” Faye asks. She knows next to nothing about how Fódlan works on a more intimate level, but there are things about Fódlan that Dimitri and Claude couldn’t share.

(Getting a barrage of information about how cruel the world can be, how harsh the world can be, how fraught and frail it is on the open seas was something she never knew how to cope with.)

“It is, it just isn’t all that common.” Annette says, helpfully. Annette, despite a war, despite the world falling apart once or twice in the last five years, has an awful lot of optimism, and Faye likes someone who likes to cling to optimism, see the brightness everywhere. “I suppose it’s up for our generation to change that.”

“I mean,” Clair says, and to the other women she may sound flippant, that same casual jolt to her voice, but Faye has seen Clair stare down nobles and generals and bandits, and watch them wander into her palm. Faye, desperately, wants to know what Clair is trying to do. “Edelgard was the Emperor, wasn’t she?”

No one speaks, and Clair’s words hang above them. She turns, humming to herself, and the room slowly picks back up again, the wedding the only thing they speak of.

Claude makes a point of meeting Faye for tea on her fourth day at Garreg Mach, bounding into her at the dining hall with skittish enthusiasm. The Claude that Faye met in Valentia was there as the Prince of Almyra, and Alm and Celica had ironed out something agreeable and friendly between the two nations. Claude in Garreg Mach is the grandson of a Duke, who gave up his claim to the Archdukedom, his true identity and status kept hidden. Claude is also the person that Kliff spends most of his time with, interrogating him about the lands so far from Valentia.

She liked the Claude she knew on the boat, who coached her through the history of the former Leicester Alliance. Who laughed when her tongue couldn’t curl around the Almayran words he tried to teach her. The Dimitri who took her across the sea wasn’t the same as the King of Fódlan, and Faye hoped, desperately, more desperate than she’d been in a long time, that Claude wouldn’t be the same.

“Thank you for joining me.” Claude says, smiling over the rim of his cup. Claude has kind eyes, one of the most handsome men Faye has ever met, and if she was younger and more foolish, she’d be tripping over herself when he speaks, hanging onto his every word. “I hope you’ve settled in well.”

“As well as I can, at least.” Faye says with a smile. “I can’t believe this used to be your school.”

“Hasn’t been a school in a while, but I get your point.” Claude shrugs as she lifts her cup to her lips. “Your retainers seem to be settling in better than expected.”

Faye pauses, the cool steam of the tea wetting her upper lip. She hasn’t really seen much of Lukas and Clair outside of meals together, but Claude must be amused with them if he’s bringing it up, his green eyes glinting. “Really?”

“I never enjoyed the divide and conquer approach myself, but Clair seems to have taken the women of the Blue Lions, as well as Dimitri and Linhardt, and then she’s very friendly with Ashe and Dedue. And last time I was in the training grounds, Lukas was keeping the noble Duke Fraldarius and Lord Sylvain in line. He’s even managed to get Bernadetta out of her shell, and he’s sturdy enough to let Caspar blow off some steam.” Claude takes a small sip, humming into the shallow cup. 

These are things Faye somewhat expected of her friends; outside of her time with the Blue Lions women, her managing to spin Linhardt and Dimitri into her web, and Lukas, after ending the war as a Baron, and his time in the Knight’s of Valentia, has left him built like a wall, the perfect sparring partner, and he’s gentle too, in ways that always made butterflies erupt in Faye’s stomach. 

“I think we can say Fódlan-Valentian relations are on a solid track.” Claude continues, raising his teacup in a toast.

Faye snorts into her cup, despite the fear gripping her heart. She wants to be like Claude, and be aloof and daring, act like this is all part of the process. “You make it sound more strategic than it is.” She says, carelessly, even as the realisation dawns on her.

There is a strategy. And it’s being conducted through Clair and Lukas, entirely independent to Faye. It explains Clair’s aloof comments over dressmaking, it explains Lukas’ overt display of strength, it explains their sudden actions. Uncompromising, and inherently Valentian, Clair and Lukas were going above and beyond to be hostile and crass and ignorant to Fódlan and their ways and their wars, so Faye could slip in, and integrate wholly.

(They’re doing it to protect her, she knows, deep down, but she doesn’t want to make an enemy out of her hosts. They’re also trying to psyche out Fódlan, to show that Faye, and Valentia as a whole, are not afraid to be critical of these things, and Faye remembers, not for the first time, that she’s here for Valentia, not just for House von Hresvelg.)

“Strategy is more important off the battlefield than on.” Claude notes, his smile softening. “But whatever you all have planned, I can’t wait to see how it plays out during the Peace Summit.” Claude, independant from Fódlan, is there to strictly observe the political process, and declare himself the heir of Almyra in one swoop. Faye had put it so far out of her mind that she forgot it was even happening, and her anxiety bubbles up into a shaky laugh.

“Well now I’m confused.” Faye says, gripping the lattice table. No one in Valentia speaks in riddles like this. Rigelians were revered for their bluntness, Zofians were brutally honest, and together, the continent of Valentia was born from their straightforward, no-nonsense attitude.

“The Adrestians. Are you not working on something with them?” Claude asks, granting her the frankness she’d asked for.

“I just didn’t think, that, I guess, heh,” Faye trails off, and squeezes her thumb in her fingers. It makes sense, how this must look, Lukas and Clair off entertaining the diplomats, Faye as the von Hresvelg heir, but that would assume Faye is far smarter than she actually is. “I didn’t think I was allowed, to meet with the Imperials. If that makes sense.”

Claude’s expression doesn’t shift, but she can feel the change of interest he’s had, as if he’s recalibrating what he knows with what she’s just said. “What makes you think that?”

“I’m a guest of Dimitri’s, not the Empire.” Faye fidgets. Saying it out loud makes her feel foolish. But it makes sense to her, that trusting Dimitri felt like an extension of trusting Alm.

Claude frowns deeply, his brows knit together. He looks confused, an entire new face for him. “Dimitri would hate to know this is how you’re feeling.”

“Then what would you recommend me do?” Faye asks, her voice only teetering on annoyance. Faye has never been good with making her own choices, or making her own path. It took four years for her to realise she wanted to go back to Ram, and even then, looking back, she can’t tell if that was truly what she wanted. Faye thought her instructions were easy, at first, but she’s four days in Fódlan and it feels more than she can bare.

“The opposite of what you want to do. That’s always the best start.” Claude says, and Faye wishes it could be that simple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u very much for reading !!! hehehe this is so stupid but im having fun !!! clair is a crest of blaiddyd bc a) comedy relief babey!!! and b) Because She Can . clair was a bit of a beast for me in echoes so thats why

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading !!  
> i have so so much fanfiction for faye and lukas written just not finished and theyve been living in my head rent free that i couldnt help but give faye the adoring knight/retainer who would follow her to the ends of the earth . sue me . rating may change but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it lmao


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